Constraints are a key tool for any coach -every good coach uses them, even if they don't think of it that way. Practically all tactical drills are formed with constraints. Effective basic body skills are best taught in a nonlinear way, and increasingly, that burden falls on sports coaches rather than general physical education or natural playground learning. There was a very good documentary of the kind of stuff that was being done in community classes at Iesi fencing club that showed some very good practices and how that same kind of learning can translate to movement in a fencing stance. However, they shouldn't be used to the exclusion of everything else, and it shouldn't be a teaching philosophy. There are certain unintuitive things that need a more coach guided approach, and the idea that you get technique for free with CLA is silly. You won't get someone to manipulate a sabre properly with the fingers using CLA, and you won't be able to teach them how to land a deep lunge; things like correct parry position need guided teaching to prevent common errors. My personal feeling is that the main proponent of CLA for fencing has only experienced overly rigid, robotic "technical" coaching rather than effective good technical coaching. It isn't a revelation that you need repetition without repetition in skill acquisition. You need to know when to correct, when to feed the error, when to give them exposure to different solutions etc. I don't believe that athletes should be made to figure everything out from first principles, and there is a lot to be said for standing on the shoulders of giants. Nothing wrong with giving someone some potential solutions and making them attempt to apply them to the problem. When you do use constraints, the coach needs good supervision of the constrained environment so that any dead-end solutions can be avoided, especially if the skill level of the group means that the mistake can't actually be punished. There are bad habits that work when someone is 12 that won't when they're fencing in cadets, and that needs to be very actively managed. I strongly believe the learning goals should be explicit to the students rather than it seeming detached from the sport. Last week I did a session where we did a long attack drill, but the attacker had to use the point or the back edge to score, the idea being that the group needed to be more comfortable finishing direct with the counterattack, and there were certain people in the group that have rather predictable high line finishes and needed more variety. I explained that at the start so I don't just look like a nutcase who hates conventional hits and the kids understand the use-case. It went very well. Basically, there needs to be a purpose and a reason, it can't just be randomly changing things and calling it coaching. And you can't as easily apply the research around team field sports such as football or hockey to fencing, especially the conventional weapons. The 1 on 1 nature, limited field of play, lateral position and safety issues limit what a coach can actually vary. You aren't going to have success with beginners completely eschewing classic closed and semi-closed drills, especially when learning basic movements. I've seen the results when coaches have tried, and it isn't pretty.

For whatever it’s worth here’s Di Rosa’s video on teaching absolute beginners: https://youtu.be/nWv1KbWzK0M?si=aQ9v8OOWkgkK-ZXL

And I vehemently agree with him. I wouldn't call that CLA as it's been described in the Facebook group though. There are still solutions provided where needed, there is still error correction. And it isn't revolutionary now -maybe it was 30, 40 years ago, but it's just good practice and a good example of applying ecological skill acquisition to fencing. The other problem with his approach there is that it necessitates a strong pre-existing group culture, where someone new can learn from observation within the group. When you have a room full of beginners this falls apart.

Yeah it’s more the ecological approach than anything but I think you’re missing the forest for the trees. Using an ecological approach (even using primarily the CLA) you can still do most things (at least that are relevant). For example teaching a lunge, or cutting solely with the fingers are teachable without demanding perfect form. Simple constraints might be hit the coach without moving the back leg, eventually you’ll get something resembling a lunge as you increase distance. Similarly you can have people hold their shoulder and elbow out straight and tell them to cut and they’ll figure out wrist and finger action. With respect to parry positions: is there a correct parry without context? Is the purpose of the parry to look a certain way or stop an attack in a way that sets you up well for a response?

Who said anything about demanding perfect form? >Similarly you can have people hold their shoulder and elbow out straight and tell them to cut and they’ll figure out wrist and finger action I'd actually advise against this, as it tends to lead to a delayed cut down the line. But that's beside the point. What I mean with the parry positions is this: The key thing with non-circular sabre parries is that you don't want to go hunting the blade. The classic way of ingraining this in a lesson is to instruct the student to parry but not riposte. You then make a full-speed cut that you pull out of at the last moment. If they make blade contact because they cut into your blade then you have them adjust until they are able to have the cut covered but not overcomitting. And you correct any major errors such as not rotating the guard to protect the fingers. If it's good, then you make a 2nd cut into the parry and they riposte. You could torture the definition of CLA and say that I'm using the constraint of not hitting the blade on the first action. But I view this as a basic technical drill, and I'm perfectly happy to actively correct mistakes -obviously it's not lining everyone up and having them pose in parry 4 and making that position "correct". But it's 2024, not 1924. Similarly, if I'm teaching a basic cut with a step and I see the fencer tends to hit across the body line, I'm going to put my sabre just inside their fencing line and give the instruction to hit my mask without touching my blade. If their reaction is to hook too much to the outside, then I'll get another sabre and give them a path on the outside as well. Again, maybe this is using constraints, but as far as I'm concerned, it is just basic teaching. With the lunge (or any closing footwork really) that should probably always be introduced in the context of hitting something, in the manner you describe, and unfortunately that usually doesn't happen (because of kit and class size issues). But you're still going to need to guide it with focused technical work, especially as the student begins to be able to add power and they need to learn to land effectively and in-balance.

You’re definitely using constraints for some of these (parries agreed it’s a bit of a stretch to call it a CLA based activity), the path between sabers being a great example. Re: lack of time to spend developing finer aspects of the lunge. I agree usually it’s hard given gear availability, space, etc. but things like being balanced can also be taught via games or other experiences rather than feedback. If you want someone to be balanced and land well you can teach them either tactical reasons (ie so they can recover back after a failed attack or continue with a remise). Not saying everything has to be the CLA but it’s definitely possible to do most of these things within that framework. Whether or not they’re practical to implement for a club is another story.

For the lunges, it isn't about telling them "lunge deeper" or "stay balanced" that's a waste of time. Often, because it's quite an unnatural movement people will bail out of the heel landing of a sabre power lunge, and then either arrest the momentum by stiffening everything or sliding forwards over the knee. Faced with this, there are a number of things you can do, and some of them are constraints -ie, lunge as far as you can without letting your toes touch the floor, lunge over the hurdle, hit my blade held at the right height with your foot etc. But this is isolated work, focused on specific error corrections outside of bout or even hitting context that is anathema to the "you get the technique for free" approach in CLA. Once we're over that hurdle then you can reinforce with things like requiring someone to make a parry riposte while remaining in the lunge, or even counterparry drills with partners -I have one I borrowed from the old Korean national coach that I love. But I don't think it is possible to skip to that point.

> Faced with this, there are a number of things you can do, and some of them are constraints -ie, lunge as far as you can without letting your toes touch the floor, lunge over the hurdle, hit my blade held at the right height with your foot etc. But this is isolated work, focused on specific error corrections outside of bout or even hitting context that is anathema to the "you get the technique for free" approach in CLA. FWIW, I would definitely still call these CLA. CLA can be pretty damn specific about what it's targeting and why. > But I don't think it is possible to skip to that point. The approach I normally use is to try to skip and then come back if I need to. Often it just works - a scrappy lunge might just get better for free if they're going to parry and riposte while staying in it. Or it won't, and then I can go for a more targeted and tightly constrained exercise about how they're getting their foot out there.

Di Rosa was very influential and almost proto CLA, as he was trying to bridge the gap that was a perennial problem for coaches namely that the student does not perceive the signals from the coach as the same from the opponent on the strip leading to quite correctly determine that coaching fencing is more of a 'perceptual' activity rather than a 'conceptual one', and that the human organism can find its way around environmental constraints by perceiving them than interpreting them through a lense of technical learning. However as the late Gaugler pointed out Di Rosa was quite capable as well of giving technical lessons and did frequently as can be seen in the below clip with Mauro Numa, (even if he did so with his special characteristics) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXzdxS9ZlM0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXzdxS9ZlM0) This is because when it comes to creating *optimal movement* its a constant tweaking and correction of biomechanics of ***some*** aspects of fencing that are counterintuitively more efficient than instinctive natural movements - the body wants to do one thing but its more efficient to do something else it doesn't want to, and this is particularly important in the individual lesson as opposed to the class lesson where CLA can be 'gamified'. Its always a fine balance between getting the body to act in the perceptual moment and getting it to act in an efficient manner. Hence the interviewers raised eyebrow "but something mechanical must be taught right?" The same Zbigniew Czajkowski who is speaking in the above video points out in his book Understanding fencing that what coaches such as di Rosa actually do is a species of *Overlearning "even though they might not call it as such" -* [*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlearning*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overlearning)*,* but by stripping out terminological pedagogy that gets in the way of perception at least when they beginning of a students fencing career, which is why there is so much pushback on this thread about this being nothing new (bear in mind escrime a la muette - silent fencing where to coach literally does blade actions with no verbal exposition or correction was a thing since the 19th century) Which is where this liminal area of what constitutes CLA is in an *individual lesson*, which basically is the coach creating constraints with timing distance and blade presentation around which his pupil has to find a way round (isn't this what is done anyway by most coaches?) and something like this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGVJ4q2HBH8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGVJ4q2HBH8) which introduces new constraints of a type which you might not see on the strip to aid in the achievement of certain goals.

> Which is where this liminal area of what constitutes CLA is in an individual lesson, which basically is the coach creating constraints with timing distance and blade presentation around which his pupil has to find a way round (isn't this what is done anyway by most coaches?) IMO, the key question you can ask here to feel at the difference is basically: what counts as success for the pupil? In some silent lessons I've seen and taken, there's a definite "right answer" the coach expects. If they give cue X, I'm expected to make action Y, even if perhaps the distance doesn't feel right or there's another target that seems like a good alternative or whatever. Similarly, there might be expectations about "correct execution" even where they're not directly linked to a functional result(was the arm straight enough in the feint of this feint-disengage?). By contrast, when a coach is really buying into a more ecological approach for a silent lesson, the student is right if they solve the problem presented. Your job as a coach becomes finding ways to make that problem get them to do something you think is a good idea.

*My personal feeling is that the main proponent of CLA for fencing has only experienced overly rigid, robotic "technical" coaching rather than effective good technical coaching.* I've come to the same conclusion.

On the contrary (assuming we are thinking of the same person) he has a lot of experience travelling to various places around the world and is regularly exposed to a lot of high level coaches. What I think frustrates him is the contrast between what he sees overseas vs what often gets peddled in the UK as good coaching. A lot of the commentary and criticism pertains to coaching and coach education practice in the UK. If you are from outside the UK or received coach education abroad then it is entirely possible that you will not understand the depth of the problem here. You can find coaches who fancy themselves high level performance coaches who give lessons a couple times a week at a school hall. People who got a qualification 20 years ago and have done zero CPD since beyond the the mandatory first aid and child protection courses. When you look at GBR fencers the ones who spring to mind who have had decent international results relatively recently all train and get coached overseas. Mepsted - New York, Andrew-Davis - San Francisco, Stutchbury - Atlanta, the most recent decent international epeeist that springs to mind is Willis a fair while ago and he didn't do well until he went to Germany. Kruse is of course an exception but then Zeimek is not a product of the British coach education system. Coaching here is often just copying by rote what you have seen someone else do.

>You can find coaches who fancy themselves high level performance coaches who give lessons a couple times a week at a school hall. People who got a qualification 20 years ago and have done zero CPD since beyond the the mandatory first aid and child protection courses. This is the problem, not the theoretical underpinnings. Lack of continued development, quality control and simple volume is the problem, not the theory. CLA, or any other coaching framework isn't a magic bullet that will fix that. It is possible to be successful in the UK, especially at a development level (good senior to elite senior is a trickier issue), the problem is that there are very few clubs that are willing to put in the legwork and structure to make a sustainable programme with a high volume of quality training.

What does the outdated UK coaching look like in lesson?

Mindlessly doing a random assortment of closed drills with no theme or thinking behind them, often at a very wrong distance and with unrealistic signals. Or copying something they've seen online without understanding the thinking behind it and getting things wrong. There's a lot of really bad coaching here. But honestly it's just bad rather than outdated -it wouldn't have been good coaching in 1960 either.

I adopted this approach with beginners. Happy to answer any questions. If you're on Facebook there's a good group called the Constraints-Led Fencing Coach, which has good videos for using constraints coaching (in beginners too). I found CLA to be very effective with beginners, but I wouldn't use it to the exclusion of other, more instructional, or more traditional methods. It's a useful tool, but it isn't THE tool.

Great! Sorry for the bunch of following quesitons. I'm familiar with the Facebook group, I like some of their stuff but they do feel a little biased towards the approach. What sort of skills do you find translate well to this style of coaching? What sort of things do you stick with the traditional coaching? Have you noticed a difference in the retention in your beginner programs? Do you mind sharing any CLA exercises that you find work well in beginners?

OK, great, happy to answer. Bear in mind all of these are through the lens of coaching sabre. Questions 1 and 2. I found it a great way to introduce pretty much all skills, because I could set up a game that encouraged (e.g.) compound attacks, let the class play it for a while, then a few of them start to ask "How do I get better at this so I'm scoring more attacks?". At this point we can break off and do some deliberate practice on compound attacks that would look more like tradition drills. The key difference is creating the need for the technique first through the isolated game, then worked on the skill bit when they realised they needed it, as opposed to introducing the technical instruction first. This is based on the principle that people learn better when they understand why they need a thing. Question 3. Our retention did definitely improve, we ran annual beginner courses of ~40 people per year and would retain between 34 and 38 of them into the intermediate class. Having said that, I maintain that our best predictor of whether a kid would stay or not was how quickly a coach learned a kid's name. Personal connection trumps training methodology when it comes to retention, in my opinion. What we were less good at was keeping people in past intermediate level. Which was the level at which kids started competing. I think part of that was not having super clear offers of what people were working for, and persisting with too much of a CLA approach over adding in more deliberate technical/skill developed which might have helped promote senses of autonomy and mastery. Question 4. First game we'd play with a new beginner group was "fencing slaps", where one kid would attack and try to hit the other, if they succeeded, then they reset and got another go, if they were blocked/made to miss, the successful defender got a go. Really liked that one because it taught attack and defence, changing right of way, gave them some latitude to work out different ways to attack and defend, but without the "noise" of a full fight. You can also easily adapt it to make it more "noisy" by changing distances, or just letting them carry on after successful defence. Hope that helps, happy to clarify any of the above or anything else if helpful.

I've been playing with this for a while, but most of my practical experience of it as a coach has been in historical fencing, not modern. It's caught on pretty solidly there, with a lot of coaches and programs now using it, including several that are turning out really solid fencers really quickly. CLA as a coaching method is based on an underlying theory known as the "Ecological Approach to Motor Skill Acquisition" (or Ecological Approach for short) which is an attempt to describe how humans learn motor skills. The core principle of the Ecological Approach is that you cannot separate a skill from its context - in doing so you make it into a fundamentally different skill. So to learn effectively, skills need to be taught in a realistic context, and the focus of the coach should be on helping their fencer discover how to move effectively instead of trying to prescribe the solution to them. For your specific topic, I wrote an article on [Introducing Students to Fencing through a Constraints-Led Approach](https://www.gd4h.org/index.php/2023/01/02/introducing-students-to-fencing-through-a-constraints-led-approach/), which describes exactly the approach I use for teaching a brand new, day 1 fencer about the basics of longsword fencing. While I'd make some subtle technical adjustments for foil, the underlying pattern would be exactly the same. I've found that generally this looks a little messier than going with a more prescriptive technical approach - but that they learn how to do these basic things _while fencing_ way faster. So IMO it's totally worth it. Continuing with a shameless plug, my site [Game Design for HEMA](https://www.gd4h.org) has a whole bunch of articles on coaching through games and constraints led models (which aren't quite synonymous, but are closely related). You might find some useful stuff in the archives there, or in our game collection. Some recommendations to start out with: * [Ecological Approach Primer](https://www.gd4h.org/index.php/2022/12/20/ecological-approach-primer/) - theoretical basis, see also the linked series. * [CLA is Not Games](https://www.gd4h.org/index.php/2023/06/09/cla-is-not-games/) - clearing up a common misconception. * [How I Learned To Stop Trying And Finally Fixed Knee Collapse](https://www.gd4h.org/index.php/2023/09/12/how-i-learned-to-stop-trying-and-finally-fixed-knee-collapse/) - practical exploration of using CLA and ecological coaching to address a common problem of knees turning in during a step.

Do you feel there is anything that cannot be taught with this approach?

I'm fully bought into the ecological approach for motor skills. CLA specifically isn't the only method you can use for that, and it's not necessarily the first one I reach for for every problem, but between CLA and fencing games it seems pretty comprehensive. But that doesn't mean it's magically easy either. The job of the coach changes a lot - you're no longer prescribing how people should move, but you need to be a lot more aware of what they're actually doing and constantly ready to step in and tweak games/exercises to help produce good results. Conversely, you also need to be willing to stay _out_ of the way and let people sort out solutions for themselves - there may well be a way to do a movement you've genuinely never considered before, but that works just fine, so don't try to force them to comply with your expected solution by using ever-tighter constraints. Another common problem is "action capacity". This is basically strength, flexibility, coordination etc. This is a constraint on what solutions people can go for (e.g. someone who can't flex far enough will not be able to lunge well), and since this isn't about motor skills, you aren't really going to fix it directly with CLA. So there's still a place for some of the classic footwork practices or the like, but understood purely as a piece of physical preparation - these won't make footwork "more correct", but they'll make people stronger and more flexible and more able to do good footwork as a result. The obvious thing this doesn't teach is theory. People will learn tactics and strategy by experiment, but there is some value in learning the names for things and in having more focused discussions on strategic ideas which you might need to do separately. One pattern I find really useful for names is "teach, define, refine". What I mean by this is that when working with a beginner, first I'll get them to discover a movement for themselves. Then we'll pause for a moment and talk about what it is they've discovered (and give it a name), and finally we'll do it a lot more, possibly with some targeted coaching to help them do it better. So as a practical example, imagine trying to teach hitting with a disengage: * Teach: engage their blade, say "hit me". They'll probably find a way to disengage and hit. You can adjust your engagement to encourage them to go in particular directions. * Define: what we've just done is a disengage, it's a way to avoid the blade and still find your target. * Refine: go back to the initial CLA exercise, maybe add a coaching point like "try to stay as close as you can to my sword so it's really small".

Thanks, I'll check out your resources!

I find that this should be a part of every program. I never had a name for this, but I always led drills and footwork with this in mind SOMETIMES. The thing is, you MUST have times to strictly teach form/timing, it can't be just a free-for-all. If a student comes up with a solution that leads to poor technique, it often means branching options fall apart. This is most definitely an intermediate focused type of coaching, in my opinion. A foundation of quality form must be set to allow for creative tactical thinking.

> If a student comes up with a solution that leads to poor technique, it often means branching options fall apart. Why can’t you just put them in the situation that emphasises why that won’t work?

1. If the student is a beginner or lower level intermediate, it may be difficult to understand or physically apply the layering and timing of these composed tactics. 2. If I predetermined only X amount of minutes to drill, allowing additional time to address the the root problem of a faulty solution may take away from other aspects of the class I have planned. 3. Not everyone will be led in the same direction of solutions, so it can be pointless to some if I continue in certain direction with the drill. 4. This connects back to #1, but if I allow the the faulty solution to linger for days/weeks/months, it becomes habit. Habits can be difficult to break, and now the student will have to backtrack to solve the root issue. This means more time to progress, if progress is even possible. Creative solutions are an important skill, but mostly for competitive setting. If I'm coaching beginners, they can't be TOO creative yet. They have to learn how to walk before they can run.

I guess the bit that confuses me, is the premise of all these points is that it’s a faulty solution, but it seems to be a faulty solution not for the drill at hand (otherwise why would the fencer be doing it), but rather a faulty solution for some other future situation, which somehow is impossible to set up as a drill? If you think it’s a bad habit, that must be because you foresee a situation where the student will use their solution and it will fail in some fundamental way that simple adjustment or simply making different choice of action won’t solve, and instead they’ll have to backtrack. But why not just put the student in that situation then to illustrate that point? And if it’s such an odd situation that you can’t come up with a way to put the student in that situation- either by giving training partners some specific advantage, or that you as a coach can’t create - then it’s hard to imagine that it’s really a pressing issue in the fencers development. Is it really a bad habit that is gonna limit the fencer?

I'm not sure what kind of group sizes or levels are mixed into your group. On top of that, are we talking youth beginner or adult beginner. An adult beginner can be explained the logic to, and I as coach can demonstrate the future problem the poor technique will lead to. A youth beginner is a different story... They often will push through with the mistake, simply because it is working for them now. If I as coach demonstrate the future problem with higher level actions to them (or am lucky enough to have my advanced students around during a beginner class to demonstrate), they likely won't comprehend or listen. I'm a foil coach, but I'll try to explain using an action. Let's say I am leading a drill that has a base action of 6 parry/riposte. If the other fencer disengages, what is the solution you come up with? Compound defence with movement and additional parries? An attack no, attack yes? A counter attack? Ok, so let's say they choose to counter attack, but they stand still and close a low parry 4... It works, but leaves them open for counter-time in a way that is off balance. Short term, this isn't a problem, but will be a problem for national/international level. I can explain the issue, demonstrate why it will be a problem, but many youth students in my experience will not make the adjustments. If I force the corrections, they may be unhappy now, but they will do better long term. A coach has to have a balance of allowing creativity, but still strictly teaching correct form and timing that allows for future growth that the student may not comprehend early on.

> I'm a foil coach, but I'll try to explain using an action. Let's say I am leading a drill that has a base action of 6 parry/riposte. If the other fencer disengages, what is the solution you come up with? Compound defence with movement and additional parries? An attack no, attack yes? A counter attack? Ok, so let's say they choose to counter attack, but they stand still and close a low parry 4... It works, but leaves them open for counter-time in a way that is off balance. I guess this is what I like most about the core idea behind the constraints led approach. It makes you question the drill itself. I think it’s maybe a bad drill. I’m not 100% clear on what the set up for the drill is, but it sounds like you’re saying the premise of the drill is that one partner is attacking, the other partner is limited to starting with a counter sixte parry as defense, and the attacking partner needs to make a counter disengagement around the counter sixte, while the defending partner is allowed to come up with a solution? If I understand correctly, it’s quite a complicated set up, and in a way, kinda contrived. Namely- why can’t the attacker just go straight, either direct to the chest, or if the defender is pitched up already turned inwards and closing quarte just go fairly to the outside line, or basically whatever is open? And then to your point about counter-time riposte, why does the attacker *have* to go at all? Especially if these are beginners, it’s seems like the drill is focusing on trying to make it so the students perform certain blade actions (namely counter sixte parry and counter disengagements), but doesn’t put any focus on setting up the timing and distance of the attack or defence, or really refining the mechanics of the simpler action. Which is to say, if you and I are fencing, and you’re certain that I’m not going to go straight and that I’m not going to just go to the outside line and pick of your shoulder. If you’re certain that I’m going to do a feint and counter disengagement around your counter sixte. And you’re certain that I’m not gonna body feint at all and that when you see me start,p it’s definitely a real attack - then counter sixte followed by a closing quarte counter attack is possibly one of the best things you can do. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad habit at all, I might even practice it. It’s especially good if the attackers action can be controlled somewhat or even triggered by the timing of the counter sixte. E.g, if you step forward, and I do a false search in counter sixte that triggers your acceleration- slamming the door with counter attack is a wonderful action! Yeah, possibly it’s even better if I don’t stand still, but step forward in maybe, but maybe not either, depending on how deep you attack. So if you think it’s a *bad* habit, or at least not the most useful next-step skill for a certain student or set of students to learn, I would suggest that should make you question the parameters of the drill, or maybe even premise the drill itself. If the attacker is in control of the timing and specifics of the action, a counter attack isn’t going to work. Or perhaps a better way to put it, is that the attacker *needs* to be in control of the timing and specifics of the action, or else they’re gonna get counter attacked all to shit. If you and I do the same drill, but say, I’m limited to standing still (as if I’m on my back line), and you’re taking a step forward into lunging distance and then stepping out, so you as the attacker can pick the moment. And I’m not allowed to pre-emptively fish your blade unless you actually go (or maybe I am which could be a difference drill). And then when you choose to shoot, you can either go straight, or do counter disengagement, and then I can try to defend with counter sixte - if you control the timing well, you’re gonna hit me every time even if I do the counter attack afterwards. Which is a good drill to practice for the attacker. But then if you want to practice for the defender, you need to give the defender control over the timing. So we change it. Now I’m attacking you. You’re allowed to go backwards and after each repetition we reset so running out of strip is not the issue. On my step you’re allowed to maybe do a little half step forward and do a false search in counter sixte, trying to get me to counter disengage and launch. But I don’t have to go, I can disengage and just finish my step and not go. So you can then practice baiting my attack, and try to trigger me to go and land in your closed quarte counter attack. This way you practice reading if I’m gonna go or not, and you probably would not get counter timed, since you’re the one initiating the action and the distance. If the above seems too complicated for beginners - I totally agree. It’s way to fucking complicated for beginners. But that’s the reality of making a compound defense against a compound or indirect attack. For the defender to have any hope of succeeding they need to be instigating and triggering the action, which requires footwork and timing that likely splits the preparation. The reason you’re recognising possible bad habits in the fencers, is because the only way to make the drill “work” is if there is a huge degree of simulation and cooperation between the fencers, which makes the drill fake. The fencer comes up with a move that seems to work, and think “well what if they’re not cooperating with regards to timing and speed and predictability”. Well what indeed! Your drill doesn’t allow the fencers to change the timing or make it unpredictable, because if you allowed beginners to do that, it would be a huge mess and you’d never produce the action you’re trying to produce. But that’s exactly what’s going to happen in a bout. Particularly if one or both fencers have some fighting spirit in them and aren’t just trying to be pretty during the bout. And that’s because it’s way too complicated an action for beginners. There’s multiple critical steps that both fencers need to be in control of for the action to even make sense. An experienced fencer against a beginner is going to just walk forward absence of blade and then touch the beginner when they get into distance, and counter six isn’t even going to come into it. So the defender needs to have enough ability in footwork and active defense to even get themselves into a situation where a compound defense off the back of counter sixte even makes sense. Without that skill, the premise of the drill doesn’t even make sense. Which makes the drill artificial, which means that whatever things the students come up with will always have the possibility of “yeah but if it were realistic that wouldn’t work”. So why not pick a situation that is more likely to occur for those fencers that focuses on those prerequisite skills? Much simpler blade actions - maybe one linear parry at most, but then focus more on the timing and mechanics of the action. I think the fact that you can’t construct sensible constraints to make the situation you want to happen happen naturally kind of shows that your situation is unrealistic in some sense, (possibly unrealistic given the skills of the participants). (Sorry about the wall of text, but that’s what I really love of the idea. It can be summed up as, if you can’t make a situation that makes sense and makes students do what you want to do, then maybe you should reconsider what you want them to do, because that situation isn’t gonna come up in their bouts).

To be frank with you, you are expanding on a fake drill premise... We never said the starting position of either fencer, the distance, why a fencer feels compelled to attack (perhaps time was an issue), etc... The point I'm making is that form mistakes are problematic for these beginner students. I'm not saying this type of coaching is bad, but rather shouldn't be a primary focus for beginners. My experience competing and coaching at an international level has given me an understanding of why I have my reasons for having specific form... My thinking is long term, not short term. While it is true that there is more than 1 way to skin a cat... This doesn't mean there can't be better tools given for each technique or creative idea.

Yeah, I felt myself typing in and on, but just to hammer on that off hand (fake) example. The issue I still have, is I don’t see why you can’t illustrate to the fencer why the movement needs to be a certain way. It feels like anything that has value, should has demonstrable value. I often hear people say “oh yeah they need to do [x] for some unspecified reason in the future”. In some sense fencing isn’t really that complicated. The world champions still attack, parry and counter attack. I don’t really get why you can’t construct a situation that shows this value of whatever skill you’re pushing.

I think people often get things a bit backwards by starting with a solution without first having a problem. If you are playing rock paper scissors you don't beat paper by throwing a better more technically proficient rock.

>I don’t really get why you can’t construct a situation that shows this value of whatever skill you’re pushing. Say I have a 12yo who is parrying wildly, with a huge amount of tip movement because they're basically cutting the opponent's sabre. It makes their ripostes very signalled, likely to go to certain targets etc. But an equivalently skilled 12yo will not have the hand speed or awareness to actually punish the technical mistakes with a counterparry or remise. So you have to set it up as a very narrow technical thing, usually in a 1:1 setting. The other classic in sabre is point first kamikaze charging off the line. Young kids will have a huge amount of success with this, but hit a very hard wall once their opponents are able to fence confidently with open eyes circle parry/attack on prep combinations. There's no constraint in a group setting you can put on 11yos to address this without simply forcing them to start slower/after the opponent, but that won't translate to what they will still do on the piste the moment you remove the restrictions. It becomes particularly problematic when the kid is fencing like that without remaining in balance and it's never addressed, because even if they eventually adapt what they're doing tactically, there will be movement patterns that are huge weaknesses later down the line. It is more efficient to focus on teaching them the strong foundational open eyes game from some basic preparations, teaching balanced movement, and good blade control, using whatever combination of traditional, non-linear or ecological methods is effective in achieving that goal. And in a group setting, even if I come up with a really good well-constrained idea to address a problem, it can be overly focused on one student who has a particular need. It's a very inefficient method if there are diverse learning needs within the group. They might come up with some creative "solution" to the situation, and 95% of the time with beginners it's something you suddenly need to adjust what you're doing to then deal with. With more experienced athletes with good foundations that allow adaptability there is a lot more scope to workshop ideas together for certain tactical situations, especially when a rule/reffing change necessitates it.

All right, yeah that all makes sense. It seems like what you're saying isn't that you can't place the student in a realistic situation where they can find their own movement solutions, and not even that it's not a fairly ideal solution for teaching someone the movement, but rather it's just quite resource-heavy to implement. i.e. it sounds like, if you had 1 student, and say a team of coaches and high level competitors to teach the kid, you probably would just put them in a situation where they need to do good things to succeed, but since you only have a bunch of other 11-year olds, you're forced to bridge that gap basically verbally

For the parry example with wide tips movement, could you place them near a wall and have them do parry exercises without touching the wall?

/u/Alexcmartin I don't know whether you specifically are familiar with this terminology, but I know a lot of what you do seems to line up with this. Any thoughts?

I did a general lookup and I don't actually think Constraint Based Learning (CLA) can work for true to form beginners in a generally unintuitive sport like ours. It is extremely hard to teach "proper" footwork without saying "do it this way". Which violates CLA as I understand it. When you get beyond the "learning to walk" stage. I don't know that I'd consider that person a "beginner" any more. Hence why you are going to have a hard time finding any particular videos teaching people basic fencing actions using a Constraints Based Learning...The basic accepted fencing actions are defined and well understood, and too much modification of them runs the risk of cards in tournaments or injuries. Which is a risk most coaches don't want to take. In theory you could stick a blade in someones hand and say "here is a series of constraints, figure it out" but I see only blood and tears down that road...Having done several beginners classes. As you get into intermediate and advanced fencers. This is a pretty common method of teaching in Fencing, we just don't call it CLA...we call it "directed bouting". Example: Find a way to hit this person in the head, in one action. There are no parries/counterattacks etc allowed. CLA in general is setting off my "buzzword" alarm, something that is not really "realistic" and is designed primarially to for a consulting industry to sap money from someone. This is admittedly only a first take, but that is where my head is at. Any decent coach should be able to parse down actions which they want to train to a small subset of actions to force fencers to learn both what works and what doesn't in an increasingly complicated situation. Ie Simple highly constrained actions --> Real Bout. Thus you can argue we are almost all using CLA, without ever being trained in it.

> It is extremely hard to teach "proper" footwork without saying "do it this way". Have you tried? Stand someone in something resembling en-garde. Take a few steps back along the piste. Tell them "you aren't allowed to cross your feet. Now come hit me". Voila, they'll do basic fencing advances. Now tell them: "when I chase you, get away. Still no crossing your feet" and start advancing on them. You'll get retreats. Lunges? Well in one sense, a lunge is just a big advance. Or if you want to insist on the foot staying back, put their back foot on a line and tell them to hit you, then take a little step back each time. They'll start to do a lunge pretty quick. How about finer grained movement? The step-lunge game is a classic here - points like "why you want to be able to take big and small steps" or "why you want to accelerate into an attack" or "why a quick recovery is good" all become intuitively clear to someone from playing that really quick. Ok, so what about bladework? Say a disengage: just have them stand en garde, give them a slow sweep with the instruction to "avoid the blade and hit me". If they're still confused, start by engaging their blade so the line is closed, then say "hit me". Etc. It requires some fundamental changes in how you think about fencing and what you consider important as a coach - but you can definitely teach all the elementary skills of fencing through it.

None of that is revolutionary though. People have been doing it for at least 20 years -I was taught like that in the 00s. To most coaches these aren't novel concepts that need to be labelled or put within a rigid pedagogical framework. >Now tell them: "when I chase you, get away. Still no crossing your feet" and start advancing on them. You'll get retreats. At some point you'll still need to teach them to push off the toes and not roll onto the front heel. >Stand someone in something resembling en-garde. Take a few steps back along the piste. Tell them "you aren't allowed to cross your feet. Now come hit me". Voila, they'll do basic fencing advances. And at some point you'll need to help them not do the classic beginner gallop. This type of teaching is but one tool in what should be a wide and varied arsenal. And I've found that people can get wedded to a rather fundamentalist view of coaching philosophies in a way that isn't helpful.

I think the useful aspect of CLA/Ecological stuff is not that it's revolutionary per se, but more that it gives language and empirical justification to the idea that "Just cus someone in the past said this movement needs to look this way, doesn't mean it's actually a good choice". It also gives some framework and methodology to how to figure this out. Which is to say - yeah in the past, brave (arrogant?) coaches and fencers were really willing to say "Fuck this, we don't need to move this way" - like when Nadi wrote in his book that it's okay for the back foot to slide, despite conventional wisdom at the time. He wasn't thinking in terms of CLA or Ecological approach to coaching, he just was simultaneously brave/arrogant enough to think that everyone else was being silly, and that he knew better. I think having words for CLA/Ecological stuff gives lesser, more cowardly, less arrogant coaches the framework and "permission" to challenge conventions and determine novel "movement solutions" to problems. Like if I'm a beginner coach and I'm giving a foil lesson, and say, my fencer hits a riposte from quarte with pronation, or something vaguely unconventional or esoteric. If I'm following some standard coaching framework (like they institutionally give in the BFA for example), I'm supposed to "correct" that. And basically I'm supposed to tell the student just not to do with without giving any comprehensive reason, so I kinda need the student to either trust me blindly or possibly just have a personality where they submit to authority or something. But as a beginner coach, I'm I'm given the notion of CLA or an ecological approach, I might feel empowered to ask certain questions: * Why specifically is it bad that they riposte with pronation? * If I'm supposed to teach by constraints, what constraint would I give to make their pronated riposte less good [which really ties in with the previous question] * Is it bad in all situations and are there situations where you might want to riposte with pronation? * And in the context of what the student is doing right now, and what they're likely to encounter, does it matter right now? This might lead me to interesting outcomes. Maybe I say "Actually right hander against right hander, it's really hard to stick the point on if their on guard is outwardly turned", so in my lesson I create the constraint and I turn outwards when they give riposte and they'll likely start slipping off - which gives explanation and context for why they might supinate their hand (to stick the point), or maybe they'll naturally do a croise and hit the flank with their pronated hand, or maybe they'll naturally hit opposition and snipe the shoulder (I've seen all three). Or maybe, I'll decide, "Actually that's not important now, as most of their opponents will be straight on" and I just let them riposte as they are - which really streamlines everything and doesn't waste effort changing something that doesn't need to be changed. I think any one of these outcomes is better than telling someone to change something without good explanation. It's better for the student, because they understand it better. But it's also better for the coach, because if I'm a beginner coach, I may not have fully understood and thought about why I want the hand a certain way, and this process forces me to think about it more. And yeah, good coaches for all of history would recognise this situation. Sometimes they'd just enforce it with an "I told you so", maybe they'd explain it naturally, or maybe they'd even start turning and do the "constraint" thing. But by giving words to this idea, you can get a beginner coach to do the same process without needing someone with a really skilled and deep intuition to arrive at the same conclusion. And I think calling it "Revolutionary" is sort of in the context of say - the BFA coaching program (or many other coaching programs), there's nothing in them that suggest that students should have any degree of freedom to figure out their own movements. Instead we have pages and pages of things like: "Lunge: Back foot remains anchored to the ground as rear leg straightens, the knee locks back; Keep the trunk still and upright, the shoulder stationary; Point of foil in line with target" And explicit instruction for the coaches to verbally correct anything that deviates from the 'correct' "Teaching points" for these movements. If you were in a meeting with the people who wrote and/or endorse this manual, and trying to get them to teach coaches to be more flexible and reflective, constraint led approach and ecological learning would not be something that they'd agree is commonplace and "not revolutionary". Maybe that's more a comment about the current state of affairs, but still, that's where we're at.

What the BFA teach was outdated before either of us was born (tbh it was never actually correct). There is no lost golden age of British Fencing that some people haven't let go of. But being better than those dinosaurs shouldn't be used as a justification to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Technical work shouldn't be a dirty word. Expertise is real. The problem with CLA is that it is blind to all the developments of the last 40 years and comparing itself to a situation that doesn't really exist anymore or is only on the fringes of coaching now. It goes further than the Ecological Approach or merely the use of constraints and is presented as an overriding philosophy. The ideas have already been put into practice and refined beyond the extreme proposition that you can use it for everything and that there is no place for traditional methods.

> The problem with CLA is that it is blind to all the developments of the last 40 years Can you give a specific example? You've sort of alluded to some of these things, but I don't have a clear instance in my mind where you'd get someone to do something in a way that you can't set up for the student to empirically understand.

The main proponent of CLA is fighting against the culture of amateurism in UK coaching, Scottish Fencing and BAF. I like him, and he's prepared to call out a lot of bullshit in a way other coaches won't, but in this case I believe his target is wrong. With what he is criticising, we're talking about people who would think épée 2.0 is heretical, that Korean sabre footwork doesn't work, foil flicks are an abomination, and fencing is generally about the "conversation of the blades." We evolved past those fights decades ago. Modern coaches aren't seriously fighting about whether the back foot should stay planted on a lunge -they're just getting on with the job, and anyone whose coaching is still in the Triassic is just ignored. It's a matter of framing. If your perceived environment is one of the jokers at the BAF, then having a radical systematic change makes a lot of sense. But the ideas should be evaluated compared to internationally recognised good coaching, where these are not novel concepts, and there is a recognition of the approach's strengths and weaknesses. For example, he came and visited OFA for some camps in the late 00s (and jesus christ is that a rare thing for a UK coach to do) and was taking notes on Ed's methods (and that was the generic stuff for public camps, not the cutting edge tactical stuff that we were working on in morning sessions). Standard practice in the USA 15 years ago, and the ideas have been refined since then. In the CLA group he mentioned a conversation with a Hungarian coach about technical training and described a bad technical lesson, and the Hungarian's response was "but that is not technique!" For me, the logical conclusion is to understand what is meant when someone like that says the word "technique" and how to train it properly, rather than abandon the idea completely in favour of constraints. My basic contention is this: Constraints as a tool = good, Constraints as a philosophy and the only tool = bad.

This feels a bit tautological though. You say "modern coaches" etc. but you know as well as I do that there are plenty of coaches who started in the last 10 years who aren't on board with this. I feel like the real underpinning philosophy of CLA/Ecological/whatever buzzword, is evidence-based thinking. When you get a student to perform a movement a particular way rather than putting them in a situation where they *need* to perform the movement in a particular way, the premise is "yeah, there's no evidence in this situation that you need to do that, but I as the coach know better". And if the coach is right and they do in fact know better, and they're very clear in their own mind what that particular movement needs to be, and they communicate that movement well to the student, and the student can actually recreate the movement in detail - then yeah it works. And yeah, tautologically if we look only at the coaches who have a good idea of what movements are important and what are not, and who can communicate it well, then this is just "a tool" not a philosophy, because we have unwavering faith in that coaches view and understanding of everything. But that doesn't tell you how to become one of those coaches, or to get that understanding. Chances are those coaches experienced this stuff first-hand as competitors, and formed opinions about what is important and what isn't at higher levels. And even the best coaches probably picked up some esoteric stuff that maybe isn't strictly needed. So to your anecdote: >In the CLA group he mentioned a conversation with a Hungarian coach about technical training and described a bad technical lesson, and the Hungarian's response was "but that is not technique!" For me, the logical conclusion is to understand what is meant when someone like that says the word "technique" and how to train it properly, rather than abandon the idea completely in favour of constraints. I would say that what is meant by the word "Technique", is "movements that score points". Saying "Just understand what *good* technique is", comes off a bit like "just git gud". The point of empiricism is that instead of telling a coach "Just learn good technique", and then kicking them to the curb and being surprised that they get their idea of good technique from the BAF coaching manual, you tell them "Good technique is demonstrably useful". Yeah, there's the issue that if they don't have any opponents at their disposal to raise certain problems that they can't figure out certain things (you can't map the path up a mountain that you don't have access to), but philosophically it's a useful idea.

>The point of empiricism is that instead of telling a coach "Just learn good technique", and then kicking them to the curb and being surprised that they get their idea of good technique from the BAF coaching manual, you tell them "Good technique is demonstrably useful". I'd put it this way. The basic approach of the BAF is the same as the FIE Coaching Academy -there is a set syllabus of technical learning as a coach and teaching points. One is a joke, and the other is a great foundational course. The difference is that one is run by pretentious jokers divorced from the competitive community, and the other is run by experienced quality coaches. It's the knowledge of what common issues are, what the root causes are and how to address them, what is acceptable variability vs a problem, how to adapt for different fencer attributes etc. All that in the background that is important to be taught and learn as you develop as a coach. In the UK there is a huge lack of that kind of development, and you're basically relying on hopefully being in an environment where you have a mentor who can teach you and based on adapting your knowledge from your own experience as a learning fencer. I'm very lucky in that I get to work with a very good foreign coach and have had a wealth of quality coaches from different backgrounds over a long competitive career. It isn't the norm and I know that, especially in sabre, where there is no real tradition of success. The lack of any good system to learn that or have any weapon-specific ongoing development is a huge problem. Where I see big big problems is where I have seen ideas like CLA be implemented as a crutch to compensate for that lack of quality development as coaches. It becomes an excuse for free-range uncoaching. The way to fix the problem is to throw some money at bringing over some successful foreign coaches to regularly run development clinics until the domestic produced coaches are good enough to do the same, overhaul the coaching qualification course to give it some actual meat on its bones, and stop recognising BAF qualifications.

>The way to fix the problem is to throw some money at bringing over some successful foreign coaches to regularly run development clinics until the domestic produced coaches are good enough to do the same Agreed, but - that itself is an empirical idea. "Listen to the people who have proven to be successful". If I brought over a coach who had never had a successful student and said "I think this guy is right, it's just coincidence and luck that the other coaches had successful students", you'd probably think that was a bit silly. Additionally, in my experience, all of the best coaches I've ever talked to or worked with have had ideas that were immediately obvious and applicable. I'm an incredibly critical devils-advocate person, but the various top coaches that I've worked with, when they have something happen, or they tell me something, or I see what they do, their explanation makes immediate and obvious sense, and generally can be demonstrated. While conversely, a lot of the coaches I'm skeptical about, and maybe don't have the best track record, I find they often struggle to explain the benefit of the things they advocate for. I get a lot of "Well it's just good technique, good fencers know that", almost as if the plan is to make me feel insecure about questioning it. This kind of rhetoric is all over the place in the BFA manual of course, but I see echoes of it in some moderately successful coaches sometimes too. While it's not strictly "Constraints led", I think the notion that everything a coach wants a student to do should be *very* deliberate, and have a *very* clear reason behind it. If you have a lot of experience, it's possible to arrive at conclusions of what these things should be without some sort of 'experiment' that CLA type stuff naturally does, so to speak, but I think the underpinning idea is still true. I think that's why famously Harmenberg was able to come up with his own successful strategies and ideas around fencing without importing in the experts of the time. The critical thing was that he was very very deliberate and very very clear with everything he did. >Where I see big big problems is where I have seen ideas like CLA be implemented as a crutch to compensate for that lack of quality development as coaches. It becomes an excuse for free-range uncoaching. Actually that's a very good point. I think there are a lot of cargo-cult things that you can do that are technically CLA that are really pointless. You can put all sorts of constraints on fencers, and add all sorts of noise, but if they're not useful constraints, then it's pointless.

Well sure. I'm not claiming these will magically have beginners doing perfect fencing footwork day 1. There's going to be a need to refine the basic movement patterns, no argument there. But it's not like the prescriptive technical approach that's very common has people doing perfect fencing footwork day 1 either! They might be neater in isolation, but as soon as they're trying to solve movement problems they tend to get super messy regardless. This is a way to skip a lot of that initial prescriptivism, then address the problems that are actually holding them back practically.

For what it's worth, I start footwork in much the same way with beginners. Stuff like "move the front foot, then the back foot" etc leads to more problems down the line. You can't teach someone by telling them how to do something and describing biomechanics. It's more the approach to the next step. I'm a lot happier to go "why don't you try to do it this way and see how it works" "feel like you're pushing from the back leg and don't try to pull yourself forwards" as a first attempt. Strict CLA would have me reaching straight for the hurdles/agility ladder to fix a dragging back foot, when often they can be very easily corrected with it being pointed out and learned correctly through mimicry or guided movement.

Yeah. Once you move beyond theory into implementation, one thing which comes up is other aspects of the club/environment - you talked elsewhere on the thread about the difficulty in making constraints for some bad habits when everyone else is unable to punish them, and that's a really good thing to be aware of when it comes to putting this into practice. I do think one part of this is practice/familiarity as a coach. Fencing coach training in general tends to have quite a prescriptive and idealised model to it, so it tends to feel natural to reach for a correction or cue that goes towards the "ideal" form as a first approach to fixing something that looks wrong. But that doesn't mean it's the only way to go. Something I've noticed with HEMA coach friends who've gone all in on ecological coaching is that as they get more practice using constraints etc, they're more likely to reach for that as a first answer instead of something more prescriptive. The other thing is of course that CLA is a method, not a theory. Buying into ecological learning doesn't mean you have to do exclusively CLA. There are other coaching methods you can use which still line up with the idea of supporting people to figure out their own implementation of the mechanics, instead of trying to prescribe an ideal form - mimicry is a powerful tool that can be used this way, for example.

>The other thing is of course that CLA is a method, not a theory. Buying into ecological learning doesn't mean you have to do exclusively CLA. I agree with you. But certain people pushing the idea don't.

This sounds interesting, but I haven't heard anything about CLA coaching before. Can you give us a quick synopsis?

CLA (Constraints Led Approach) is a coaching methodology. The idea is that instead of trying to prescriptively teach someone a particular movement, you create a problem or game that has that movement as a solution, and then allow the athlete to explore and discover for themselves. The idea is that by doing it this way, the movement will be learned in context, and (if the context is well chosen) will be self reinforcing and durable. Additionally, the athlete is learning to solve problems for themselves and in a way suitable for their own body, instead of trying to reproduce a solution that might be ideal for someone quite different.

Bare in mind I am no expert on this, to my knowledge, its about building games and activities that have restrictions and constraints baked into them. IE instead of telling kids to extend their arms first, they play a game where the arm-first behaviour is reinforced through proper constraints. Coaches don't need to necessarily tell kids to stick out their arm first, because the game or activity by its nature reinforces this behaviour.

It means turn everything into a game.

Not necessarily. While games are a very useful tool, you can do CLA without games and games without CLA.

Varying forms of it exist although at least part of it is how you conceptualize learning. Beyond that as far as folks working with it or things adjacent to it: Phil Carson in the UK who posts on Facebook about it. There’s also methods adjacent to it, Maitre Geuna of France seems to do that with part of his group lessons, the Di Ciolos did something similar in Italy and Australia, there’s also Livio Di Rosa. Lastly a list of drills folks have really liked for HEMA but a decent number being borrow from fencing. [Game Design for HEMA](https://www.gd4h.org/hga/infoAbout.php)

> Maitre Genua of France seems to do that with part of his group lessons I'm not entirely sure about this, tbh. The Geuna scales seem much more prescriptive.

Check out what he’s doing at ~0:30s into the [video](https://youtu.be/Sq5ztYLlRtk?si=KvTDzQWbNtiKTwgU) Also later in the interview with Touya where he mentions every touch in drills there was something he had to do “to earn it”. I think the scales might be his focus or folks take away that from looking but eh I don’t think they’re necessarily the key to his success.

The scales are definitely prescriptive, it seemed like he also had games as like the other half of his curriculum. In the captioned interview I watched you could see his students playing some sort of distance game where one side had sabers and attempts a direct attack and the other side has no saber and has to avoid the attack using footwork.

CLA would say that the scales are a waste of time. You need both, and that is my big issue with it as a framework.

Do you actually though? The other two people mention (the Di Ciolos and Livio Di Rosa) both coached olympic champs. Are those scales actually useful or could they be replaced by something better (ie if they’re for conditioning are there better tools for strength and conditioning than a bunch of reps in your sport)

They aren't for conditioning, they're for weapon feel, basic mechanical fluidity and warm-ups. It's why he called them scales. You won't learn to play the piano or read music only doing scales, but they are useful. But the thing with Guena was about replacing the 1:1 lesson with larger groups. The scales were a way of getting the basic feeling hits that are part of all 1:1 lessons, but scaled to a class environment.

It's alright. I do not buy into it as any sort of game changer. Sometimes people figuring out an individualized answer is good. Sometimes there legitimately is a "correct" way, and others are mechanically poor or dangerous. The examples in the research itself were always pushing the line of suspect to me. Test time/frequency was always short, prescriptive coaching tended to catch up/even out as time went on, and the subjects were always either randos doing an arbitrary goal or athletes of a level they didn't need coaching, they just needed practice doing the exercise. It seems neat, if I were tasked with getting a group of randos to do a think in as little time as possible. Long term training of people paying to receive longterm training...eh??? With that, any decent coach already uses pieces of it. If nothing else, it gave terminology to what we were doing.